The mobile-only forecast shows that Instagram will make up 5% of Facebook’s global mobile ad revenue this year ($595m), increasing to 14% in 2017.

While the platform’s advertising capability is also available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, the US will account for 92% of Instagram’s total mobile ad revenue this year, a number that is set to drop to 85% by 2017.

2. Innocent wants to take coconut water mainstream

The campaign will be promoted through outdoor, PR and sampling activity as well as a “heavyweight” digital campaign that includes banner ads, YouTube pre-roll and social media activation.

The campaign is a move to “drive category trial” according to Helen Pomphrey, Innocent’s UK marketing director, who said that sampling is crucial for the brand, which tastes “slightly different to the other ones on the market”.

She added that the category has “huge potential”, something the brand is hoping to tap into by driving penetration.

“Penetration of coconut water in the UK is relatively low, around 4%,” she said. “In the US it’s been established for a few more years and it’s close to 10%.

“There’s headroom to bring people into the category. It tends to have quite a city focus, but there’s an opportunity for it to go mainstream.”

Last September, the health and beauty retailer aligned itself with perhaps the biggest vlogger of them all, Zoella, with her exclusive make-up range subsequently breaking Superdrug’s internal sales records.

And Walburn says the tie-up with the YouTube star has had a transformative impact.

Speaking at an event previewing Superdrug’s Christmas range, Walburn told Marketing Week: “I think what we’ve done with Zoella has shown the brand at its very best as our competitors did not react to the movement as quickly as we did.

“Identifying the vlogger trend and putting it into product form has helped to significantly boost both online and in-store sales. I think the work we’ve done with Zoella has transformed the business in a way. Vloggers will be an important part of our marketing mix for the future, I’m certain of that.”

4. P&G has a new CEO with a whole range of challenges facing him

Procter & Gamble is to get a new CEO with David Taylor, its group president of global beauty, grooming and health care, to succeed A.G. Lafley as president and chief executive from 1 November.

Taylor joined the FMCG giant back in 1980 and has helped to build core brands in areas such as home care and family care – two areas he has led to consistent double-digit profit growth, according to P&G.

The outgoing CEO says Taylor will lead P&G during the “most comprehensive transformation” in its history.

Having already served in various senior roles across the business, Taylor appears to be in a good position to take the reigns on P&G. However, with ongoing issues around its product ranges and “questionable marketing”, his tenure won’t be without its challenges.

The campaign, which kicks off this week, will involve a “huge” communications plan around the new variant which the company calls a “premium, Strongbow take on cloudy cider” that is an effort to “keep consumers with the brand for longer”.

Emma Sherwood-Smith, Heineken UK’s cider director, told Marketing Week: “Strongbow was the first mainstream cider brand and for many years enjoyed a huge share of the marketplace, but over recent years increased competitiveness across both draught and packaged cider has been tough.”

She said that given the size of the brand consumers often question its quality compared to more “niche brands”, something it has tried to address for the first time this year.

“There’s a powerful quality story behind the brand,” she said. ”We use one billion apples per year grown in our Hereford orchard and we’re trying to communicate that story to consumers for the first time to keep us relevant.”

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/five-things-you-need-to-know-this-week/feed/0Panasonic’s marketing director on how programmatic has transformed its brandhttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/panasonics-marketing-director-on-how-programmatic-has-transformed-its-brand/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/panasonics-marketing-director-on-how-programmatic-has-transformed-its-brand/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 15:17:36 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306259Its European marketing director for B2B Stephen Yeo says the process to consolidate all its databases into one CRM system, via programmatic solution Marketo back in April 2013, has been “liberating” and that, as a result, a third of the brand’s new business sales leads are coming from marketing campaigns alone.

And Yeo told Marketing Week that he believes programmatic will “rightfully” become the future of marketing.

He explained: “This will become the dominant form of marketing. The Alan Turing test was that the definition of AI is not being able to tell the difference between a computer and a human, this technology is allowing us to get closer and closer to that ideal.”

Panasonic, which sees 72% of its business in B2B through solutions such as selling PCs directly to firms, has now rolled out the Marketo structure across its European business spanning 25 countries. It is also beginning to implement it across the US and Asia.

Yeo admitted that the strategy could be seen as a “risk” and that he isn’t shut off to suggestions that placing faith in algorithms can create a robotic feel to marketing.

However he hit back: “Yes it is a risk but at the end of the day behind every programmatic campaign is a human being. I’d like to remind people, that there are plenty of human interactions that also feel unimaginative and sterile.

“As long as you have people who understand it and put enough time into generating relevancy and content, you’ll get good results.”

Since switching its focus to programmatic, the subsequent campaigns have improved marketing’s contribution to Panasonic’s total revenues from 7% to 32%. It has also, according to Yeo, doubled the attendance at its European events due to creating “more engaged consumers.”

Yeo said Panasonic has tried to ensure it doesn’t spam its business customers and has a “throttle” installed to send each customer no more than three campaigns per quarter.

He believes a lot of brands have failed with programmatic due to using it in the wrong way and “scaring off consumers through spamming and intrusive tracking.”

He concluded: “I looked at nearly 10 solutions when doing the due diligence for this change and nearly all only focus on email and spamming.

“This will only work if there’s flexibility. We use it to determine marketing for our events, webinars and social media – it took us a year to design it and make sure it worked properly. There is just over 40 people on our marketing team and engagement levels have risen since we implemented Marketo. if you don’t do it right, then there’s no point.”

Join Marketing Week and Econsultancy in London on 29 September for the second edition of Get with the Programmatic– an essential brand-led conference that promises lively debate, honest peer-to-peer learning, and content that covers the whole programmatic ecosystem. Book now

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/panasonics-marketing-director-on-how-programmatic-has-transformed-its-brand/feed/0Gousto looks to ‘displace horribly inefficient’ supermarkets with food delivery servicehttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/gousto-looks-to-displace-horribly-inefficient-supermarkets-with-food-delivery-service/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/gousto-looks-to-displace-horribly-inefficient-supermarkets-with-food-delivery-service/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 13:49:30 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306246The London-based company, founded in 2012 by Timo Schmidt and James Carter, uses seasonal produce and ethically-sourced ingredients to offer consumers up to four delivered and recyclable recipe boxes per week, chosen from a weekly menu.

It was created in response to the trend of people not cooking as much at home and relying on fast food and takeaways, according to newly appointed CMO Mark Newton. He adds that the brand is “growing incredibly fast”, already seeing 500% growth so far this year.

“For most people, trying to plan recipes and getting the right ingredients is labour intensive,” he said. “We wanted to make it simple and easy.”

He added that 70% of consumers say they want to cook for themselves compared to the 30% who are happy with a takeaway or prepared meal.

Given the success of takeaways and ready meal services, this suggests the likes of Gousto could be the “second wave of food delivery” according to Newton.

‘Advertising more heavily’

While the brand has been built on direct marketing until now, the appointment of Newton, who was previously responsible for global mobile marketing at Microsoft, will see it move into advertising through more traditional channels.

“We already have a beautiful brand associated with discovery and great cooking, and the average satisfaction score is equivalent to Apple level,” Newton said.

The plan is to advertise more heavily in the future through face-to-face marketing, events and referrals as well as a push on digital.

This involves the launch of a mobile app, released yesterday (30 July), the first in the category and already higher ranked than the Ocado app in the Apple Store’s food category.

With 45% of visitors to Gousto doing so through mobile or tablet, the app is an effort to “remove the drudgery of supermarket or online grocery shopping” by allowing users to select from a changing menu of dishes and enter their details in less than a minute to have a Gousto box delivered.

‘Displacing supermarkets from the bottom up’

Grocery deliveries are going to become “explosive” despite still being a small category according to Newton.

“General grocery deliveries in the UK, even though it’s one of the most advanced markets in the world, is still rather small,” he said.

However, he said that looking at the US market seems to suggest the category will expand rapidly, with equivalent business Blue Apron valued at £2bn.

While the brand does have competitors in the UK kit delivery market, such as recipe box subscription service Hello Fresh, Newton said it sees supermarkets as the main sector it wants to challenge, adding that there is room to “displace them from the bottom up” and create “a better way to shop for food”.

“We think supermarkets are horribly inefficient ways of buying food,” he said, adding that “enormous amounts of waste” are created by both the supermarket and the consumers.

“It’s much better to cut out the middle man and allow people to figure out what they want to eat and deliver just the ingredients they need to cook it with in the moment they want to cook,” he added.

The London 2012 Paralympics drew attention to disability sport across the nation and around the world, particularly when Channel 4 took the title of broadcaster of the tournament.

In the year that followed, the Paralympic events at the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games, an annual track and field event held in London, attracted 60,000 spectators, a number that dropped to 20,000 this year.

This is despite the fact that the event attracted major athletes from around the world and was broadcast on Channel 4 and BBC, suggesting that not enough is being done to promote such events.

Richard Armstrong, founder of content marketing agency Kameleon, says: “Disability sport certainly doesn’t get the attention it deserves. In particular the athletes who partake in the sports certainly don’t appear to get the exposure their achievements warrant.”

In order to address this, earlier this month Warner launched the UK’s first disabled-first sports event, Para Tri.

The event, which will take place on 9 August in Windsor, invites disabled participants as well as their friends and families to either complete the entire race or to sign up as a relay team in order to “enable as many people as possible to take part for the first time”.

It will be supported by a print and social campaign in an effort to boost awareness and participation at the “grassroots level” in the build up to Rio 2016.

Meanwhile, specialist serious injury law firm Irwin Mitchell has launched a campaign titled “Don’t Quit, Do It” to highlight the benefits of sport in helping people recover from injuries or traumas.

The campaign features a series of videos of people who have used sport to overcome injuries and is voiced by former Paralympic swimmer Giles Long.

‘Storytelling’ to inspire consumers

According to Irwin Mitchell, only one in six people with a disability in the UK take part in sport regularly.

However, there are certainly a number of elite platforms for brands to choose from.

The Invictus Games, a competition for injured servicemen, women and veterans which was hosted for the first time in London last year, will also be held again in the US in 2016.

“There certainly seems to be a shift in attitude towards disabled sports,” Armstrong said. “Take the Invictus Games, which seems to be growing at a steady rate, yet it appears there is little support from brands.”

While Barclays are supporting the Para-Tri event, the bank is not an official sponsor and no others have yet signed up.

However, Warner said that the support of brands such as Barclays helps to boost awareness and “drive accessibility in such a big way”.

Some brands have helped to support disability sport. Mondelez partnered with British Paralympians while Debenhams ran an ad campaign starring Paralympic amputee.

However, Armstrong believes this is a bigger opportunity for advertisers, especially as many of them claim to be focused on “storytelling”.

“There is a lot of noise from brands about how they want to inspire customers,” he says. “Disabled sport is full of incredible stories to be told regarding outstanding athletes, yet as an industry we appear to shy away from telling these stories, instead sticking to safe bets and what we know.

“These stories would get far more attention from me than any story focused around the technology of a football boot,” he explains.

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/brands-needs-to-build-momentum-around-disability-sport/feed/0Consumer confidence dips, as shoppers feel less secure about economyhttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/consumer-confidence-dips-as-shoppers-feel-less-secure-about-economy/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/consumer-confidence-dips-as-shoppers-feel-less-secure-about-economy/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 09:17:09 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306237The overall index score fell to 4 points this month having reached a score of 7 in June; the latter, a level not seen for at least 10 years.

In July, expectations for the general economy fell five percentage points to -1 compared to the previous month. And people’s economic fears are even more significant when calculated on a year-by-year basis, with the -1 score ten points lower than in July 2014.

And although the major purchase index – which calculates the likelihood of consumer propensity to spend big on products such as electronic equipment or furniture – score of 11 is 14 points higher year on year, it has decreased five points from June.

Joe Staton, head of market dynamics at GfK, told Marketing Week: “What we are seeing is a clear sense of consumers understanding the world around them – they know the issues and they are aware where the threats might come from.

“You get the sense that they have taken appropriate action by putting their house in order.”

He believes that the negative shift in consumer confidence compared to July is partly due to the “potential Grexit melt-down” and “global uncertainty.”

However it isn’t all bad news. On a personal level, consumers remain upbeat about their financial situation for the coming 12 months.

The forecast for personal finances over the next 12 months has increased one point to 6 this month; four points higher than in July 2014.

There is also a strong acknowledgement that personal finances have improved over the last year, with the respective index staying at a score of 4, which is 15 points higher than in July 2014.

Staton added: “Can UK households withstand a rise in interest rates? Yes I believe they can because they have been “toughened up” by the financial crisis.

“Consumers have emerged strong and resilient and have developed coping strategies – from couponing to shopping around for best deals – to help manage and prioritise their everyday finances.”

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/consumer-confidence-dips-as-shoppers-feel-less-secure-about-economy/feed/0Secret Marketer: Marketers are often misjudged but they bring it on themselveshttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/secret-marketer-marketers-are-often-misjudged-but-they-bring-it-on-themselves/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/secret-marketer-marketers-are-often-misjudged-but-they-bring-it-on-themselves/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 08:24:29 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306209While I have a good relationship with my fellow colleagues, and on the whole they get the benefit of marketing, whenever it comes to a new campaign or the annual budget planning exercise, they seem to forget all the good work my team have delivered over the preceding 12 months.

Interestingly, I think part of this is because as an industry we do ourselves few favours. I have long-standing beef that our trade body has done little to establish the credentials of our profession among the finance and commercial directors at the same table; plus the fact that our professional qualifications do not stack up against those for accountants, lawyers or HR colleagues.

And then we go and kick ourselves in the foot, with the actions of some of our less conscientious associates, and it is often the visibility of this that sticks in the mind of others.

Our industry was known for many years as being responsible for the junk mail mountains that often piled behind front doors when people got home from work. While direct mail, when done well, is a highly effective form of marketing, too few people think about segmentation, relevance or even proper name addressing. Next we are blamed for filling colleagues’ inboxes with irrelevant spam emails. Again, email marketing can be very persuasive, but only if the originator thinks about the message, the targeting and the appropriateness of their invasion of others’ privacy.

And being more specific, we have those damned ambulance chasers – the “I believe you had a car accident” or the “have you claimed your PPI insurance cheque yet” – usually from robots, none of which appear to have any sense of targeting, other than the fact you have some form of telephone. Those in the financial services sector have a lot to answer for by allowing these repugnant opportunists to exist, which has impacted many boards (of totally unrelated products) from authorising telesales within their mix.

And then come the “chuggers”. Usually well-meaning individuals, from some highly respected third-sector brands but who are a blight on many high streets, and in turn, bring the marketing profession into disrepute for hassling people heading to work or the train.

I remain of the view that marketing is an essential part of any business, but it is infuriating when less experienced colleagues make judgements that you would never dare make about their credentials. But I do feel we bring some of it on ourselves.

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/secret-marketer-marketers-are-often-misjudged-but-they-bring-it-on-themselves/feed/0Marketers urged to sign up to regulator’s first e-learning coursehttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/marketers-urged-to-sign-up-to-regulators-first-e-learning-course/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/marketers-urged-to-sign-up-to-regulators-first-e-learning-course/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 23:01:58 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306216The move is part of the CAP’s commitment to increase the advice and training support its offers brands in order to cut down on complaints. It is already developing its second course on “misleading” advertising which will likely consists of three modules in total.

Last year the Advertising Standards Authority received 187 complaints about 140 ads in the alcohol sector. Of those, 27 had to be changed or withdrawn.

Already this year, 38 alcohol ads have been complained about with two being banned and another six cases where ads had to be amended.

CAP admits the number of complaints is relatively low but says making sure alcohol ads are compliant with its code is of paramount importance to ensure they do not appeal to young people and against a backdrop of societal concerns about harmful alcohol habits.

It also fits with its commitment to provide more advice and training for advertisers.

Shahriar Coupal, committee director, says: “We urge anyone involved in marketing alcohol to take advantage of our module; it’s written by the Code experts and can help save the time, money and reputational damage of having a campaign investigated and, potentially, banned by the ASA.

“Despite the strict alcohol rules, there are many creative routes for advertisers to take and our focus is on providing them with the support they need to make sure their ads are also responsible.”

The module, which should take around 2 hours to complete, includes a step-by-step guide to key ASA rulings and the decisions behind them, an explanation of the rules and when they apply and a guide to common mistakes. It also includes exercises and continual assessment, as well as a certificate upon completion.

The ASA provided 140,000 pieces of training last year, up 21% on the previous year and aims to increase that by a further 100,00 this year.

“One of the big themes of our strategy is to provide better support to businesses, and there’s a lot more we can do, but the industry has to meet us halfway there,” says ASA CEO Guy Parker.

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/31/marketers-urged-to-sign-up-to-regulators-first-e-learning-course/feed/0Avios claims ‘industry first’ as it puts creative control in its customer’s handshttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/avios-claims-industry-first-as-it-puts-creative-control-in-customers-hands/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/avios-claims-industry-first-as-it-puts-creative-control-in-customers-hands/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 15:26:46 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306207The travel company – which serves as a loyalty-based, global currency for brands including the British Airways Executive Club, Flybe and Iberia Plus – has launched a microsite (www.domorewithavios.com) to allow customers to send display “nudge” messages to their loved ones.

The site, powered by DoubleClick’s eco marketing tool, will subsequently publish the personalised messages in banner spaces online after they’ve been vetted to ensure they are not offensive. Examples include two brothers, Tyler and Jake, who used the tool to create an ad asking their dad to use his Avios points to take them to the zoo.

Avios has already picked a selection of the best messages, including the boys’ message, for an out-of-home advertising campaign and to fuel social media activity. It is also considering using entrees for TV ads later in the year as part of the “Do More With Avios” campaign.

Admitting that the latest campaign has required an “element of bravery”, Fletcher said that utilising co-creation could become “fundamental” to future marketing plans.

She told Marketing Week: “I don’t think people are listening to big brands anymore. If you look at the trust barometers, the influence of social media and its ability to let people share with their loved ones is more potent then what brands have to say. With this campaign, we wanted to facilitate a true level of co-creation.”

Fletcher said personalisation-based marketing has become “too intrusive” and believes customers want to play more of a role in the direct messaging they receive.

However she admitted the campaign was also fuelled by the brand’s aim to be cost efficient due to its “limited ad budget.”

“I suspect we will look at other iterations of this going forward and I can see it becoming fundamental,” she added. “Most travel brands tend to look at advertising through a CRM lens, we want to push boundaries.”

For the campaign’s launch ads, Avios put out a casting call on Facebook which Fletcher claims generated more than 600 entrees in just 24 hours.

She concluded: “There’s already been a real hunger for this campaign. A lot of brands talk about putting the customer first but we are the first to actually do it.

Before we were too functional – the messaging was all about ‘buy, collect and fly’. At the end of the day, our loyal consumers can talk up the benefits of Avios way better than we can so why not give them a platform to do so?”

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/avios-claims-industry-first-as-it-puts-creative-control-in-customers-hands/feed/0What brands need to know about Instagram marketinghttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/what-brands-need-to-know-about-instagram-marketing/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/what-brands-need-to-know-about-instagram-marketing/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 14:52:02 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306131An eMarketer released earlier this week forecast that Instagram’s mobile ad revenue will hit $595m this year and will more than quadruple over the next two years to reach $2.81bn in 2017. That would make its mobile display ad business bigger than both Twitter and Google in the US.

That growth is driven not only by Instagram opening up its platform to all brands through a planned self-service platform but also by there is growing interest from marketers. They are attracted by Instagram’s reach – it has more than 300 million users worldwide and 14 million in the UK – which gives it an increasingly broad audience for brands to reach.

Chris Buckley, chief digital officer at TMW Unlimited, says: “With more users comes a broader range of interests and content. It gives more scale to the brand-specific topics that advertisers are interested in.”

Instagram launched ads first in the US and then to other markets a year and a half ago. There have already been more than 500 brand campaigns and Instagram continues to add new features to make the service more appealing to advertisers.

These include new formats such as carousel ads, more analytics and better targeting capabilities. As Tom Richards, senior account director at social agency We Are Social, points out, it has a parent company in Facebook that has already built up a multi-billion dollar social ad business and can use its learnings to help Instagram grow even faster.

Initial reports from brands have been positive. A report from SocialBakers found that the average post engagement rate for brands was 3.31%.

Given its early success it’s no surprise that Instagram is opening up its ad platform to more brands.

“We’ve spent the last 18 months establishing the platform for large brands. The next logical step is to empower businesses of all sizes to be able to achieve their objectives,” says Jim Squires, Instagram’s director of market operations.

That, says eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson, will release a lot of “pent up demand” for the platform. She cites a survey from the US in February by RBC Capital Markets which found that 72% of marketers were “at least somewhat interested” in advertising on the site.

Focusing on creativity and expanding beyond branding

Instagram’s advertising business has its origins in branding. Marketers have used the site to sell an image of their brands.

In particular companies in the fashion and travel sectors have gravitated towards Instagram where their high quality creative is right at home. When the company launched its video loop ads, Barbour was one of the first on board.

However Richards highlights that other brands such as Intel and General Electric have also seen success on the site by taking a “more creative approach”.

“[Instagram] has an obvious natural affinity with visually-led sectors but we’ve also seen great Instagram content and campaigns from less obvious sectors too. There are companies whose products don’t necessarily make visual marketing an easy win for them, but have experienced success on Instagram by taking a creative approach,” he says.

There is also an opportunity branding. The next step for Instagram is a move into direct response ads with ecommerce capabilities including “shop now” and “install now” buttons.

Chris Pearce, joint CEO at TMW Unlimited, says: “While I would agree with Instagram’s own commissioned research that it is an ‘inspiring and beautiful’ platform for emotive creative, I think one of the really exciting opportunities for brands (and surprisingly underplayed so far) is in the incipient m-commerce functionality.”

The challenges

However success on Instagram isn’t a given. Richards says Instagram is not an easy platform to get right. Brands have been successful so far because they have created campaigns specifically for the site that play to its strengths. As more brands come on board Instagram must ensure that the creative remains high value.

“It’s unlikely that the same strategy [brands] are employing on any other social platform will resonate on Instagram. Its user base has historically been very critical of brands pushing into their news feeds if the content isn’t of a high enough quality.”

That is only likely to increase as more brands use Instagram. Aho Williamson believes that only brands that use “appropriate targeting and creative” will be successful.

She also advises brands to remember that “Instagram is not Facebook” and that brands must beware of factors including its distinct sense of community, its focus on photos and videos and the fact that discovery is hugely important.

Unlike on Facebook, users frequently follow people they don’t know and are looking to be inspired. People also have a number of different accounts, an important consideration for brands as they consider how to target people, says Aho Williamson.

She believes marketers face a number of challenges as they either launch or expand their Instagram advertising. She advises brands that they must ensure they are maintaining the high bar of creativity, making use of targeting and measuring results and comparing them to other platforms.

The introduction of direct response ads also poses a risk, with brands needing to be careful in how they insert a sales pitch into what has up until now been a branding environment.

Richards says: “For brands to be successful on Instagram, they need to be prepared to invest in first class creative assets as well as regular analytical feedback about how they are performing against their goals. They need to understand how their target audience uses the platform, what kind of content they’re looking for there and how they’ll interact with it.”

Pearce agrees: “Watch outs would be test, optimise and learn without committing the farm or being seduced by the hype!”

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/what-brands-need-to-know-about-instagram-marketing/feed/0Syco on how brands can help it create the next One Directionhttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/syco-on-how-brands-can-help-it-create-the-next-one-direction/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/syco-on-how-brands-can-help-it-create-the-next-one-direction/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 14:06:16 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306189With 20 years of experience, Marks is a seasoned marketer having most recently left entertainment and content marketing agency Red Bee where she worked closely on campaigns for BBC and Disney.

She also helped craft the iconic Levi’s 501 jeans campaigns, which featured the music-obsessed “Flat Eric” character, while working for BBH in the 1990s.

Admitting that now is a “transitional time” for the music industry, citing the move to streaming and social media as an example, Marks says the label must start to “think differently” about the way it approaches marketing.

She told Marketing Week: “While the brand has been very successful already, I think it’s time to think differently about marketing our artists. We want to focus on finding brand partners that are inherently entertaining and on mobile, as that’s where the bulk of our audience sits.

“Syco would also benefit from utilising outside expertise and advertisers as we want to do more around content strategy and creation.”

Following the global success of the British boyband One Direction, who have become a brand in their own right through consistent product and brand deals, Marks says the label is focused on looking at all of its artists as “brands that need to be built up”.

Michelle Marks, marketing director at Syco Music.

The Syco Music label roster includes the likes of One Direction, Little Mix and Labrinyth – although the latter is a rarity, with the label used primarily as a platform for artists discovered on Cowell’s reality shows such as The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent.

Marks believes the rise of social media and brand advocacy presents plenty of opportunities for musicians.

“We are ambitious for more success on the scale of One Direction, that’s a priority. I think the desire for brands and artists to work together is stronger than it’s ever been,” she added.

“As advertisers look to find ways to connect with audiences beyond paid media, artists can play a big role by giving them access to the right audience and generating real value. My job is to make each of our artists into an international brand.”

Over recent months, brands have upped their level of music endorsements. Earlier this month beer brand Corona announced plans to expand its Sunset music festival, while Starbucks recently announced a loyalty partnership with Spotify.

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/syco-on-how-brands-can-help-it-create-the-next-one-direction/feed/0Eat on how its ‘single-minded brand view’ can help it connect with customershttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/eat-on-how-its-single-minded-brand-view-positions-it-for-growth/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/eat-on-how-its-single-minded-brand-view-positions-it-for-growth/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 10:46:13 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306143Eat has appointed a new agency in Fold7 to develop and execute a “new creative strategy” for the brand, which offers a changing daily food-to-go menu that focuses on hot food. The move comes as Eat looks to expand beyond its urban base in cities such as London with a goal of opening at least 30 stores per year.

Brand director Sarah Doyle told Marketing Week: “To go from 100 to 200 stores over the course of the next three years we need to have a single-minded view of what the brand is about. There are loads of things we do well but we have to be singular about the one thing that will connect us with our customers.”

For Eat this means standing out in the marketplace by matching its store environment with the quality of its food.

“We’ve spent £13m on rebranding our stores over the last two years to be something we’re proud of,” Doyle said. “We’re now in a position where we want to grow the brand.

“We have strong awareness but we’re still only roughly a third the size of Pret,” she added. “We have the opportunity to take it further.”

Competing in a world of fresh food to go

When Eat launched in 1996 it was only competing with Pret and M&S, according to Doyle. Now, however, it is “competing in a whole world of fresh food to go” with the likes of Itsu, Pod, Chop’d and Wasabi coming onto the scene.

“We are in a very competitive and attractive space and we’re in a position where every brand is competing for share,” she said. “More people are eating breakfast out of home and on the go and the lunch opportunity continues to grow.”

She added that while Eat initially felt its food was “so good that it spoke for itself” the brand now realised it needed to better communicate its point of differentiation.

“With all of this competition you need to be telling customers what you’re about and amplifying the messages you have. You need to be part of the conversation.”

The brand will kick off new in-store and outdoor activity in the autumn to target “the specific moment where people are thinking about having lunch or breakfast”.

Using digital to improve the customer experience

Doyle said sampling, social and digital will be key platforms, with the company launching digital menus as part of its rebrand that showcase its changing menu and customer views of its products.

“We invested in digital menu boards to keep pace with the rate of change of our menu,” she added. “If someone tweets about one of our products this allows us to post that on the board and digitally share people’s opinions of our food, encouraging customers to try the product.

“Social doesn’t have geographic borders and we can start to exist in conversations in other areas before we’ve even opened a store.”

The brand has also introduced mobile tills in some of its stores where customers can pay on iPads carried by staff.

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/early-adopters/feed/0Facebook’s ‘game plan’ to monetise WhatsApp and Messengerhttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/how-facebook-plans-to-monetise-whatsapp-and-messenger/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/how-facebook-plans-to-monetise-whatsapp-and-messenger/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 09:31:59 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306165Speaking on an earnings call last night (30 July) following Facebook’s second quarter revenues, Zuckerberg said the company will run the “a similar playbook” to how it built a business out of Facebook. While he said the company was under pressure to “just put banner ads and inorganic content into the experience”, Facebook decided that an “organic interaction” would be better long term.

That involved allowing companies to build free pages on the site and offering analytics on how use of those pages boosted their businesses before offering ads. It will be a similar strategy with its messaging services, with Facebook allowing people to contact businesses organically assuming that will boost revenues “further down the road”.

“Right now some people in WhatsApp use the service in order to message businesses, Messenger is still more people-to people. But the long-term bet is that by enabling people to have good organic interactions with businesses, that will end up being a massive multiplier on the value of monetisation.

“We’d ask for some patience to do this correctly. The game plan will be more similar to what we did in Facebook with news feed,” he explained.

The opportunity in Instagram

While WhatsApp and Messenger monetisation may still be some way off, one business Facebook is ramping up is Instagram. A recent forecast from eMarketer predicted Instagram could generate 10% of Facebook’s revenues by 2017 as it looks to build out its ad business.

Zuckerberg claimed Instagram is becoming the “best place to get a real-time snapshot of the world”, citing moments such as the US presidential campaign trail and NASA’s first shot of Pluto as interesting ways people are using the service.

He also highlighted some “big improvements” to the app including upgraded search and a new trending content feature. That is alongside more ad capabilities including new formats such as carousel ads, direct response, self serve and better targeting.

“Over the coming months, Instagram ads will be available to more advertisers.

“As we ramp Instagram ads, we remain focused on quality and relevance to ensure the best experience for people and the highest performance for marketers.”

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO

Speaking on the same call, COO Sheryl Sandberg, said that despite the growing interest from brands, Instagram will be “really thoughtful and strategic” in how it ramps up revenue.

“We’re going to continue to focus on the user experience, focus on the community growth and monetisation will follow,” she said.

Facebook’s mobile growth

The results also revealed that Facebook’s mobile revenues now account for 75% of its total business, up from 62% a year ago. Total quarterly revenue was more than $4bn for the first time in Facebook’s history while ad revenues overall were up 43% year on year.

Profit fell 9% to $719m, mainly due to increased investment in R&D and hiring.

In total Facebook now has 1.49 billion users every month, with 1.3 billion of those using it on mobile. Daily active users reached 968 million while Facebook claimed that on average people spend 46 minutes a day on its services, wehter that be Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram or Facebook itself.

On its own marketing, CFO David Wehner said Facebook will “invest more” in sales and marketing despite it remain flat compared to last quarter.

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/how-facebook-plans-to-monetise-whatsapp-and-messenger/feed/0Mark Ritson: Marketers have forgotten the meaning of marketing’s most basic principleshttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/mark-ritson-marketers-have-forgotten-the-meaning-of-marketings-most-basic-principles/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/mark-ritson-marketers-have-forgotten-the-meaning-of-marketings-most-basic-principles/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 08:09:31 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306034th Century businessman and potter Josiah Wedgwood as the inventor of modern marketing. More accurately, most scholars point to America where the first marketing courses were offered back in 1905 and where the first marketing textbook was published a year later.]]>

Irrespective of the exact date, it’s clear that marketing is now more than a century old. Age confers many advantages – not least acceptance. Thirty years on, I can still remember the look on my beloved English teacher’s face when I told him I was off to Lancaster University to study Marketing and not Oxbridge to read English. “Marketing!” he exclaimed with the horrified look one might use on being told of an intended career as a heroin dealer or African warlord. “Marketing!”

Those days are thankfully over. But gentrifying marketing confers other risks. As our discipline ages and the concepts of marketing become established and embedded into the lexicon of everyday life, we risk forgetting what their original definitions meant and how we were supposed to apply them. Let me give you three very real examples.

Exclusive. It’s a word so beloved of modern marketing it has become paradoxically widespread. Traditionally the term has come to be associated with anything that carries a premium price. Now, you can buy exclusive ice creams or children’s toys or doorknobs (as I discovered last weekend). It’s all patent nonsense, of course. An exclusive brand is not simply one that fancies itself as such or one that attempts to charge more than its rivals. To be truly exclusive a brand must only appeal to a tiny minority of the market and then steadfastly reject all others. To be exclusive, at least in its original meaning, is to say to vast swathes of the market: ‘Piss off, I reject you from my brand and will do everything in my power to keep you out.’ Exclusivity demands that the traditional four Ps of marketing are not harnessed to generally maximise sales across the whole market but rather as a weapon that turns off, shuts down and closes out most potential buyers. There are very few genuinely exclusive brands left in the world but Ferrari is certainly one of them. I say that not because of its high prices or high quality, but because its most recent offering – LaFerrari – was only available to customers who already owned at least five previous models. That’s exclusivity for you.

Differentiation. At some point in the last fifty years the concept of differentiation became so generic that it was absorbed into every brand plan without exception. Let’s be clear what differentiated means – it means to walk a completely different path that no other brand in your category understands, let alone can replicate. A truly differentiated brand requires three key ingredients: a tight and distinctive positioning, a creatively charged set of executions and a brand manager with balls the size of watermelons – metaphorically speaking. To be differentiated is to take an axe to your category and exclaim: ‘Fuck it, let’s break everything.’ Again, there are few brands in recent years that one can point to as truly differentiated but I would hold up Benefit Cosmetics as a proper example. The world of beauty has become so serious and so very boring but Benefit is the differentiated exception. I defy you not to smile when you encounter them next.

And finally there is brand loyalty. It has become the custom to identify any customer that purchases your brand more than once as a ‘loyalist’. Alas, as most young agency types eventually learn, two consecutive nights of lovemaking does not a relationship make. To truly qualify as a brand loyalist in the original, intended meaning of the word is to exit the category and refuse to satiate your need because your brand of choice is not available. It’s an increasingly rare phenomenon these days but it still happens. My favourite (correct) definition of brand loyalty came from the former CEO and chairman of Heinz who once explained his idea of brand loyalty for his brand: “A shopper goes into a supermarket looking for some beans. There’s no Heinz. She comes out without any beans.” Could it be any simpler?

So there you have it. Marketing is an old profession these days and so are many of the concepts within it. But remember their original intent. There’s more power and direction in their traditional form than you might expect.

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/30/mark-ritson-marketers-have-forgotten-the-meaning-of-marketings-most-basic-principles/feed/2Heineken pushes £7m into biggest ever product launch for Strongbow Cloudy Applehttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/heineken-pushes-7m-into-biggest-ever-product-launch-for-strongbow-cloudy-apple/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/heineken-pushes-7m-into-biggest-ever-product-launch-for-strongbow-cloudy-apple/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 14:36:42 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306128The campaign, which kicks off this week, will involve a “huge” communications plan around the new variant which the company calls a “premium, Strongbow take on cloudy cider” that is an effort to “keep consumers with the brand for longer”.

Emma Sherwood-Smith, Heineken UK’s cider director, told Marketing Week: “Strongbow was the first mainstream cider brand and for many years enjoyed a huge share of the marketplace, but over recent years increased competitiveness across both draught and packaged cider has been tough.”

She said that given the size of the brand consumers often question its quality compared to more “niche brands”, something it has tried to address for the first time this year.

“There’s a powerful quality story behind the brand,” she said. ”We use one billion apples per year grown in our Hereford orchard and we’re trying to communicate that story to consumers for the first time to keep us relevant.”

‘Breaking the norms around cider advertising’

The launch is among a number of moves by Heineken to “break some of the norms” around how cider is marketed.

“This time of year you’ll see a lot of communication in the category looks very similar – blue skies, sunny days and apples falling from trees,” she said.

“Trying to disrupt busy millennials as they go about their routine is really difficult.”

In order to target that age group during their free time the company has looked to music festivals. Sherwood-Smith said this provides “an opportunity for us to cut through and do something that’s value adding and memorable”.

Heineken launched a comeback for Strongbow at music festivals this year with the “Strongbow Tree”, a 12 metre high structure drawing on the brand’s Hereford roots featuring a DJ booth at the top.

“We’ve had a history of festivals and activations but a few years ago we pulled back a bit to concentrate on different touch points,” Sherwood-Smith said. “This year we’re reasserting Strongbow’s position as the alcohol and cider brand at festivals.”

It has also launched activations at smaller festivals for its premium Old Mout brand as well as “Bulmers Colourena”, a branded space featuring the likes of powder paint and a dance off, across festivals including Isle of Wight, British Summertime and this weekend’s Kendal Calling.

According to the Office for National Statistics, cider, perry and mead sales hit £911m last year and are set to be a £1bn industry this year, boosted by sales of fruit cider.

Bulmers recently launched a Zesty Blood Orange flavour, which “exceeded expectations in terms of distribution and rate of sale” and drove “reappraisal of the brand in a competitive market”, according to Sherwood-Smith.

It is also working on creating online content in the music space, which will see it team up with an artist.

However that doesn’t change the numbers. When P&G releases its latest results tomorrow (July 30) it is expected to announce an 8% decline in annual sales to levels of around $76bn, according to Bloomberg. Taylor will need to prove that the new streamlined approach can deliver for P&G’s shareholders and fast.

Ian Bell, head of homecare research at Euromonitor International, says questions remain over its brand proposition and whether it is doing enough to innovate despite spending up to $2bn a year in R&D.

Although praising Tide Pods, a product P&G has invested in heavily and claims will “revolutionise laundry”, he says P&G “just aren’t innovating as often” as their competitors.

“The company is going through so much white water right now, that Taylor may be the right force to calm things down,” adds Ali Dibadj, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

“However, this doesn’t mean it’ll be easy as P&G faces many challenges battling irrelevancy in the eyes of consumers. Do big premium brands in commodotised categories really work?”

More compelling marketing

P&G’s decision to continue to command premium prices isn’t winning fans in its home market of the US.

Bell explains: “They have a big spat with Walmart who have not been impressed that P&G is continuing to maintain premium prices on quite mature brands. Sorting that out has to be a priority as they won’t want to damage their relationship with such a big, price-focused, retailer.”

And although P&G has seen success with the “Like A Girl” campaign for Always, Bell says its marketing is “inconsistent” and failing to justify the high prices of its products.

He says one way it can drive value is by emulating rival Unilever and its approach to driving the sustainability debate.

“They’re quite a bit behind Unilever still when it comes to making sustainability a key marketing message. They are doing a lot of positive things but not communicating them creatively – that will help them justify their pricing.”

P&G: Despite high-profile endorsements from footballers such as Joe Hart (pictured), Gillette can still improve

Growing overseas and addressing Gillette

While cutting down its portfolio to focus on homecare will make it a “more efficient business overseas”, Bell says P&G is still playing catch up with Unilever.

The strengthening currency exchange rates in the US have created issues for P&G, with previously emerging markets such as China cooling off. In comparison, Unilever thinks it has the answer for the falling Chinese market through its ecommerce tie-up with Alibaba.

Bell explains: “ You could say that Unilever has a head start due to historical reasons but they need to narrow that gap to be a truly international player in the future of homecare. Engaging with consumers more consistently could be key.”

It will need to come through with its promises to innovate and prove that the current trend away from shaving products really is – in the words of P&G’s grooming commercial director Ian Morley – “temporary.”

Despite these various challenges, Dibadji believes there will be a safe theme to P&G’s new boss. He concludes: “David Taylor will signal more continuity than change at P&G.

“Nonetheless, we continue to see lots of opportunity for P&G to improve its cost-structure, portfolio, organisational structure, and culture of accountability.”

Over to you, Mr. Taylor.

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/three-brand-challenges-that-await-new-pg-boss-david-taylor/feed/0Can New Balance’s ‘athletes first’ focus take on Nike and Adidas?http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/can-new-balances-athletes-first-focus-take-on-nike-and-adidas/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/can-new-balances-athletes-first-focus-take-on-nike-and-adidas/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 12:04:42 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306027To say the athletic category is competitive is an understatement. The likes of Nike, Adidas, Reebok and Under Armour have all launched campaigns this year in an effort to maintain their positions as top athletic brands, making New Balance’s ambition to take one of the top three spots a big one.

However, New Balance believes that a change in approach to become more marketing rather than product-led will see it challenge the top sports brands globally.

The strategy started with New Balance taking over as official kit supplier for Liverpool Football Club, launching its first soccer business under the New Balance brand.

While the brand initially adopted a no endorsement approach, it is now looking to top athletes to front its campaigns.

New Balance’s first global brand campaign, “Always in Beta”, starred global athletes such as Miguel Cabrera, Milos Raonic and Aaron Ramsey. It was an effort to highlight recent innovations such as its Vazee running footwear, Made for Movement apparel collection and the launch of its first football boot range.

Speaking to Marketing Week, Keates said that the brand did research that resulted in a theme of both athletes and consumers “always pushing and trying to get better”.

“We wanted to bring those two things together and be more vocal about the things we do as a brand in a consumer friendly way,” she said.

She added that athletes have always been a big part of the brand, whether or not they have featured in the brand’s campaigns.

“They’ve always been part of our product development, but bringing that side of the business to life for consumers is new for us.

“One of our brand pillars is putting athletes at the centre of everything we do and we’re bringing that to the forefront in terms of the brand. The strategy hasn’t changed, but how we communicate it has.”

Hilary Keates, global marketing head, New Balance

Competing with Nike and Adidas

The new marketing platform is aimed at competing with rival Nike which at the same time released a star-studded campaign titled “Find Your Fast” promoting its running business.

“We want to be number one in running first and foremost,” Keates explained.

The brand’s move into football, the “number one sport in the world”, is “very much in line” with this goal, she said.

“If you think about footballers they run more on average than other athletes, so this felt natural as a brand,” she said. “Running is at the core of what we do and its how those athletes can succeed.”

New Balance recently followed in the footsteps of Adidas by launching its first football boot range with a focus on a “style of play” rather than a position on the field.

The campaign video “Make Chances. Take Chances” featured four of the premier league footballers it sponsors, including Aaron Ramsey and Adnan Januzaj. It pushed the idea that its football business is “not position-specific” but “outlook-specific”.

However, Keates said one of the most important things to the brand when it launched “Always in Beta” was finding a “unique proposition”.

“One of our other pillars is being independent,” she said. “We don’t follow other brands. We follow our own path and chart our own course.”

A tough fight ahead

Keates said the brand has made good progress towards its top three goal, with a growth rate of 15% over the last five years.

“We’ve been on an amazing trajectory and watched the brand grow,” she said. “Our growth rate has been pretty exceptional.”

While New Balance does not release its financial results, CEO Rob DeMartini told Bloomberg that revenues hit $3.3bn in 2014 and will be closer to $4bn in 2015.

The numbers are way behind Nike which had sales of $27.5bn, although its growth rate is slower at around 10%.

Recent brand tracking data also suggests a move in the right direction.

According to YouGov’s BrandIndex, purchase intent has risen slightly over the past six months, taking the brand from 9th to 6th on the list of 25 sports brands. Purchase consideration is also up by a statistically significant amount putting the brand in 12th spot.

However, the brand is 14th on the overall Index ranking with a score of 6.5 compared to leader Adidas on 27.4 and Nike on 26.9. It also falls behind the likes of Asics, Puma and Reebok.

Though up by three points compared to six months ago, its also ranks 23rd out of the 25 brands in terms of awareness, suggesting it has a long way to go to use its marketing to become a top three brand in the UK.

James Ramsden, executive creative director at Rufus Leonard, says New Balance has a “tough fight” ahead, but that the emergence of Under Armour shows it can be done.

“Adidas, Nike and the emerging heavyweight that is Under Armour are very, very active brands all doing innovative projects like Adidas Go integrating with Spotify for running, Nike releasing its new app Nike NTC and Under Armour moving into digital products with their $500m purchase of MyFitnessPal and Endomondo,” he said.

He added that New Balance’s most recent products are “fresher, up to date and more fashionable than how it used to feel”.

However, he said: “The reality is the big three sports super brands are way ahead when it comes to feeling ‘cool’ and New Balance has some distance to close. The health and well being revolution that’s taking place is gathering so much momentum that New Balance will have to do something really different next to be the laces that everyone wants to tie.”

Keates said that in order to drive the brand up the rankings, New Balance will focus on the sports “where we feel like we can compete”.

“We’re going to stay very focused as brand and continue to build on what we’ve started,” she said.

“We’re going to strengthen our business in the sports that we’re in and continue to build product, market it and really understand our consumers and what they need. As a marketer that’s the first place to start.”

Q: How can marketers use Pinterest to create brand advocates?

Brands can participate on Pinterest by creating high-quality boards and pins that will help people find inspiration. Also, by including the ‘Pin it’ button on their website, brands enable pinners to easily save content to Pinterest where it can live and be discovered by other pinners who are searching for similar content. Each time someone pins an object, they’re saving it for themselves but they’re also sending a signal to other pinners of their love for that brand, essentially becoming a brand advocate.

Q: How is Pinterest adding to its functionality to deepen the level of engagement between users and brands?

To help pinners discover more of the brands they love, we simplified our search fucntion to create more streamlined search results, adding a check mark next to notable names and brands (verifying they are authentic accounts) to help pinners more easily distinguish popular brands.

We’re also helping them by making more and more pins actionable. For instance, every single pin links back to the originating website, so pinners can easily find more information about that pin.

Q: Is there a recent brand campaign on Pinterest that stands out?

When Bank of America launched its Better Money Habits [BMH] programme, it used Pinterest best practices to make sure the creative on pins would encourage organic discovery, feel native [to Pinterest] and drive pinners to take action. They created boards for different life moments, like buying a home and travel plans, populating each with relevant pins that pointed to deeper educational content on BetterMoneyHabits.com.

In less than five months, BMH content on Pinterest reached nearly 6 million unique pinners, generated more than 29,000 re-pins and led to thousands of actions on BMH.com including video views.

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/pinterests-head-of-product-marketing-on-brand-advocacy/feed/0P&G brings in new CEO to lead its ‘most comprehensive transformation’http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/pg-brings-in-new-ceo-to-lead-the-most-comprehensive-transformation-in-its-history/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/pg-brings-in-new-ceo-to-lead-the-most-comprehensive-transformation-in-its-history/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 08:56:42 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306078Lafley, who will be moved upstairs into an executive chairman role to lead the board of directors, will continue to provide advice to Taylor.

Taylor joined the FMCG giant back in 1980 and has helped to build core brands in areas such as home care and family care – two areas he has led to consistent double-digit profit growth, according to P&G.

He also has vast international experience having led P&G’s interests in regions such as North America, Europe and Asia.

“We thank A.G. for returning as CEO to lead P&G’s transformation,” says Jim McNerney, lead director of P&G’s board.

“The company is now organised into four industry-based sectors with a focused portfolio of 10 categories and 65 brands that play to P&G’s strengths. Now is the time to transition to David as CEO.”

The outgoing CEO says Taylor will lead P&G during the “most comprehensive transformation” in its history.

“We are a more focused and balanced company, committed to winning with consumers and creating value for shareholders,” adds Lafley.

“The Board and I are confident that now is the time to transition the CEO role to David who will sharpen the strategies and lead the execution of the next important phase of building a better P&G.”

The experienced Taylor, who has worked closely with Lafley in the past, says he is “honoured” to take up the role.

He concludes: “I believe in the power of P&G people, brands, products and values. P&G is transforming to be a faster-growing, more profitable company. I am committed to the strategies and look forward to leading the people of P&G to win with consumers and drive growth.”

]]>http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/pg-brings-in-new-ceo-to-lead-the-most-comprehensive-transformation-in-its-history/feed/0Twitter admits it has a ‘marketing issue’ as it looks to hire first ever CMOhttp://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/twitter-admits-it-has-a-marketing-issue-and-it-is-hiring-a-cmo-to-address-it/
http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/07/29/twitter-admits-it-has-a-marketing-issue-and-it-is-hiring-a-cmo-to-address-it/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 08:56:37 +0000http://www.marketingweek.com/?p=306077Currently CFO Anthony Noto is in charge of marketing. However speaking on a conference call following its Q2 results announcement, he said Twitter still has a “marketing issue” in that people don’t understand Twitter or how to use it.

With that issue in mind, he said Twitter is currently talking to a number of “quality candidates” about the role. Twitter is also prepping the launch of its first integrated marketing campaign tp promote “Project Lightning”, a service it plans to launch in the autumn that curates tweets around live events.

The marketing push comes as Twitter said its “low level of penetration” – just 30% of consumers use it in markets such as the US and UK – meant it was only reaching early adopters and technology enthusiasts and not the mass market. Its user numbers in the second quarter were up by just 12% year on year to 302 million (excluding the 12 million people a month that use its text messaging service).

“We have unbelievably high brand awareness globally. People all over the world know of the power of Twitter, but it’s not clear why they should harness it themselves. An answer to ‘why Twitter’ must be articulated clearly and felt everywhere through the service,” said Noto.

“We are advancing this marketing communications work as fast as possible and ensuring it’s coordinated with the simplification of our service,” said interim CEO Jack Dorsey, speaking on the same call.

‘As easy as looking out the window’

Dorsey articulated a vision of what he thinks Twitter can be. He said it should be as “easy as looking out your window to see what’s happening” but also has to be the “most powerful microphone in the world”. He believes Twitter’s service is currently too confusing to be either.

The company has made some changes, including introducing instant timelines and a new home page for people that want to visit the site without logging in. But Dorsey’s comments suggest these haven’t had the required impact and he said Twitter’s user growth remains “unacceptable”.

Dorsey believes a bigger overhaul is needed and he gave the biggest hint yet that Twitter could look to switch up the timeline, which up until now has been a real-time stream of tweets from accounts people follow. It has made some moves to surface content it thinks might be of interest to users through a “while you were away feature”.

However Dorsey is now calling for a “questioning of our fundamentals” including its reverse chronological timeline to “balance recency with relevance”. That could include introducing algorithms based on each users’ behaviour so that Twitter surfaces content that is relevant.

Twitter has been dogged by comparisons with Facebook and more recently the likes of Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat, all of which have faster user growth rates. And Noto warned that any acceleration in user growth is unlikely to come for a “considerable amount of time”.

Revenues on the rise

Yet despite the negative comments, Twitter’s advertising business is performing well. Total revenue was up 61% in the quarter to more than $500m while ad sales reached $452m, up 71%, driven by strong demand as well as growth in Twitter’s advertiser base.

Noto also remains confident that Twitter can still go on to reach the mass market.

He explained: “There’s two things that are required to get there. One, articulating a clear value – what Twitter provides, why people should pick Twitter versus all their other choices. And two, delivering that value and their expectations of the value when they get to the product.

“What we start with is great brand awareness. Second, we have to clearly communicate that value. Third, what we have that people want is the best real-time content in the world and ability to participate with our real-time content. There’s no asset that we need to go get. We know we have the value. It’s one communication and two it’s about making the product simple and easy to use.”